


but now, you're listening

by fauxpunk



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Carolina Hurricanes, Discussions of death, Emotional Constipation, Explicit Sexual Content, M/M, Miscommunication, Non-Linear Narrative, Pining / Longing, Sea Monsters, Sea-longing, a bitch asked is anyone gonna write some batshit canes fic?, and then didnt wait for an answer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-09
Updated: 2020-02-09
Packaged: 2021-03-12 16:55:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22625560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fauxpunk/pseuds/fauxpunk
Summary: Sebastian, Teuvo decides, will miss him when his body aches, and then, after, not at all.
Relationships: Sebastian Aho/Teuvo Teravainen
Comments: 13
Kudos: 24





	but now, you're listening

**Author's Note:**

> title from harvard by laundry day
> 
> poem dispersed throughout is midsummer off the coast of spain by kat myers
> 
> sea longing as a concept was stolen from tolkien and completely bastardized for my own purposes

**now**

_ [I wanted to return to that place, _

_ back to the open mouth of the ocean, _

_ where the white cotton of my dress, _

_ salt-soaked, _

_ clung to my thighs] _

When Teuvo left home, he wasn’t gunning for an ending quite like this.

“Can you describe me?” he’s saying into his phone receiver, the ticket for the shitty zoo he’s at perched between two fingers, flimsy and insubstantial.

“What?” is all he gets from Erik in return.

“You heard me, I know you did.”

Teuvo is not in Finland. Teuvo is not in Sweden. Teuvo is not anywhere it would make sense for him to be at this moment. But, he is on the phone with Erik. And Erik’s voice is something to hold onto even when the world feels supremely fake. While he’s staring into the eyes of a polar bear the size of a well-made fridge.

Okay, maybe he’s not looking at the polar bear. Maybe he’s staring at his reflection in the glass that separates them. Maybe that’s the part that doesn’t seem real.

“Where even _ are _you right now?” Erik misses the point.

“Can you foot the long-distance bill next month?” Meaning _ you can’t get in your car and find me. _

“It’s 4 am here.”

Teuvo breathes hard out his nose. The polar bear shifts from one foot to another, then almost falls back down the hill in its enclosure. It manages to stay upright. Teuvo falls backward instead.

In his left eye, the bear sits, growls, disappears.

“It’s not 4 am here,” Teuvo provides.

“You’re impossible.”

“Now you’re getting it,” he says. “Tell me about myself.”

There’s a long silence on the other end of the line and if he didn’t know any better, Teuvo would suspect Erik had fallen back asleep. But, because he knows better, he knows Erik wasn’t even asleep to begin with.

“Is everything alright?” Erik asks, finally, getting closer to the heart of the matter.

“See, I was hoping you’d be willing to help with that.”

And Erik does, like he always does, like he always will do. He helps.

“You’re the worst,” Erik says, “You love making me mad and I miss you. Please come home.”

Teuvo’s reflection smiles. He pulls his lips back wider, convinces himself he is who he sees. That this body is the one he is in. “I’ll be back soon.”

He won’t be, not for a while.

The sickness still runs through his veins, even if it’s been years since he saw the sea, even if it’s out there, just to the East.

“I saw Sepe,” he says, then, because that’s what this call has to be about now. “Sebastian.”

And maybe that’s what it’s been about this whole time.

Erik inhales, then blows out so hard Teuvo can feel his breath in his ear. “What are the fucking chances, huh?”

Teuvo watches himself nod, then remembers he’s on a phone call. “He looked good.”

Erik scoffs. The polar bear reappears and this time, he’s got a fish in his mouth. “He’s always looked good.”

Teuvo has known Sebastian for far too long to believe he’s only ever beautiful. He remembers, distinctly, the tearful McDonald’s trip that preceded Teuvo's move to Chicago. He knows things. He doesn’t divulge them. Instead, he says, “Yeah.”

Which is a fucking lie.

“You sure you’re fine?” This is the tone of voice that means _ if you lie to me I will take the next flight out of this godforsaken country. _

Teuvo doesn’t lie. Says, “I’m sure,” because he’s fine. Because Erik’s on the phone with him, Erik is convinced he’s real and that’s enough.

“So he’s there.” Erik picks back up after Teuvo stares as the polar bear tears a fish apart right beneath his chin. “And you’re there.”

“Fuck, I sure am.”

The fish is here, too, although it probably wishes it wasn’t.

“Good luck, then,” Erik says. “I’m going to bed.”

And the phone call ends.

**then**

_ [back to Galicia, Pontevedra, La Isla, _

_ and its heat-blushed skies, _

_ where I studied the bones of my hand underwater, _

_ shifting slow in the waves] _

“Take a left at this light,” Sebastian says and Teuvo goes ahead and listens to him because he’s never really been able to tell Sebastian no.

He’s very aware that this is not the light he usually takes to get to Sebastian’s house. He just can’t let on that he’s had these twists and turns memorized since the first night, back when the act of knowing meant nothing at all. They’re not that much older now. Time has done nothing but exacerbate the ache.

He keeps moving, he watches Sebastian come apart in the side view mirrors, watches the lights travel up his midsection, put him back together again.

They don’t talk about this. They don’t talk about how Teuvo has eyes and Sebastian has a mouth and how they’re already half one another.

Sebastian motions for Teuvo to pull over on a back road.

There are no street lights here, only trees and the moon. The lights come on in the car.

“Where are we?” Teuvo dares to ask. His voice does not come out as shaky as he feels.

“Does it matter?” Sebastian asks, and well, yeah, it doesn’t, not really. It never has.

They’ve both got it bad, beneath the waves.

When Sebastian unbuckles his seatbelt and slides his hand up the side of Teuvo’s jaw, kisses him slow and deliberate, that’s all he needs to know.

This is before the worst part, before the best part, too.

The night sky holds too many stars.

**now**

_ [and a family dusted in cinnamon sang prayers to the tide, _

_ watching as their daughter, _

_ bare-chested and braver than me, _

_ learned how not to swallow the sea or be swallowed by it] _

The bar they’re at was not made for casual conversation, the patrons are far too attached to screaming at the top of their lungs about a jukebox to pay any attention to the needs of anyone else.

Still, Sebastian manages to raise his voice over the commotion, their native tongue suddenly unfamiliar in the fray. 

“What are you doing here?”

He doesn’t mean the club, he probably means America, this state, this city.

Teuvo wants to say he doesn’t know, like he would have, back when this was still a game they played.

“Vacation,” he says. It’s still a lie, but at least it’s a convincing one.

If Sebastian catches on, he doesn’t mention it.

They’d made these plans a week ago, just after Teuvo had spent a full hour observing Sebastian through the smudged window of a coffee shop. Just before his trip to the zoo.

“You want anything?” Sebastian asks, voice light still, perfunctory politeness seeping into Teuvo’s pores, making him itch and squirm.

There’s a tired glint to Sebastian’s eyes. He’s sweating, he looks ill, Teuvo watches as he wipes his palms on his thighs.

It was never supposed to be like this. “Gingerale,” Teuvo manages to choke out. “I’m driving.”

Then, the night is a monster that eats them both whole.

Sebastian skirts around him like a kicked puppy, Teuvo never fully understands what it is about him that makes Sebastian feel so unsafe.

He holds a cold glass in his hands, downs it, holds another. It’s just soda, but he’d been lightheaded beforehand.

“You look great,” Sebastian rasps out. He’s taking shots off the counter.

One time, back in school, before all this, or maybe after, Sebastian took shots off Teuvo and gagged and spit and nearly threw up moments later.

“It was hot,” he’d said. “You’re hot. Vodka’s gross.”

Those words play over and over in Teuvo’s head now. He knows it must have been before, now, because back then Sebastian could stand to look him in the eye.

There’s a truckload of confusion swimming around in the air, muddling things up, finding its way in and out of Teuvo’s lungs in a frustrating rhythm.

He doesn’t know what all of it means. Why Sebastian is here, why he’s here, why they’re together again after everything that happened.

It feels too serendipitous to merely be a coincidence. For once, Teuvo lets himself believe in fate.

In Teuvo’s head, they don’t speak much, after that. That doesn’t stop Teuvo from imagining allowing his hands to find their way to their familiar spot at Sebastian’s waist, doesn’t stop him from thinking about pulling him close, pressing his lips to the column of Sebastian’s neck.

In this vision, Sebastian exhales through his nose.

“Is this what we’re here for?” Sebastian would ask.

Imaginary Sebastian’s voice is light, and it’s not reluctance as much as it might be disappointment. Teuvo can’t answer that, even in his own absent-minded fantasy. He feels too much like he’s on fire again.

No one’s ever been able to make him feel the way Sebastian makes him feel, he’s been searching for a long time.

In lieu of an answer, imaginary Teuvo just drags imaginary Sebastian into his lap, fits his hands on his hips, kisses him on the mouth.

Feels his heart swell in time with the bass.

Real Sebastian tires of the silence. He’s jittery, shaking, sinking. “D’you remember,” he starts, one hand swirling his long island iced tea around in a cup, “that one time in university when I found that tire swing in the woods?”

Teuvo finds himself nodding, even though suddenly his body doesn’t feel like it’s his anymore. He remembers lacing his fingers between Sebastian’s deep in the woods behind their dorm. Spending countless hours reading theory aloud, waiting for Sebastian to tell him to stop. He never did.

“You remember the last time I saw you?” Sebastian asks after, because that’s exactly where Teuvo’s mind had gone, too.

Teuvo’s always wondered if there was something more he could have said that day. Something different. He’s cycled through it endlessly, picked out the most important bits.

In his head, it always goes like this:

Teuvo’s holding two beers and Sebastian has so many letters at his feet.

_ “What if I asked you to stay? Would you?” _

There are many ways to respond. The Teuvo in this memory chooses the worst one.

They weren’t anything to each other until they were something and by then it was too late. Teuvo convinces himself he’s in love alone.

What he wants to have said is: _ I’d take you with me in my carryon, in my cologne bottles and facewash, I want you to be in the space between me and the rest of the world, in the atoms lining my skin. _

But even then, it’s meaningless.

He wishes the thought counted. The time machine in Teuvo’s temples breaks, sends him hurtling back to the present.

“Yeah, I remember,” Teuvo chokes out.

“Good.”

**then**

_ [her braids unraveling to sticky curls, _

_ her eyes stung red but shining still, _

_ and her mother calling, _

_ sirena, sirena, mi sirenita, _

_ each time she came up for air] _

“What the hell does this mean anyway? _ Theme _ bullshit, I should drop out,” Sebastian huffs, hand dangling in front of Teuvo’s face like it’s worthy of his attention.

Teuvo’s trying to study. _ Trying _being the keyword. In reality, he’s probably skimmed over the same section of his textbook on the justice system too many times for him to have really gained anything from it.

Sebastian’s laid out on Teuvo’s bed, his shirt only half on due to the heat. “And now I’ve got the, what, time capsule? I won’t even _ be _ in America in 50 years. I’ll be _ dead _ in 50 years.”

“God, I hope so,” Teuvo says and that earns him a swat to the face.

“I don’t even know what to write. _ Love letters _, bullshit, I’ve never loved anyone.”

Maybe it shouldn’t hurt anymore. 

“Just write, like, _ hope you guys have 4D porn now _or something.”

“Do they proofread them, before, you think?” Sebastian runs a hand through Teuvo’s hair absentmindedly, ruining his careful part. _ You look silly like that _, Sebastian would say. 

“Probably.”

“I’ll write about love, then. Shouldn’t be too hard.”

In the heat of August, everything still seems so real. Teuvo eyes the peeling wallpaper, the sweat dripping down Sebastian’s back - it’s sweltering, Teuvo is suffocating.

He turns back to his books.

“Say something about Finland,” he says, pencil pressed hard to his lips. He‘s trying very hard not to blurt out something stupid.

“You mean say something about you?” Sebastian laughs but then there’s the heat and there’s the paper piling up around the two of them and Teuvo doesn’t - he can’t laugh.

It’s then that Sebastian fixes him with a stare, something indecipherable, something so much like home that it makes Teuvo ache. He feels it in his knees.

“I can say lots of things about you,” Sebastian says and really, that’s the end of it.

\--

It’s like wading through a swamp, or walking on flypaper, the way time ticks by while bullshitting your way through an exam. Teuvo’s almost done, maybe, hopefully, but he knows Sebastian’s in the back of the room twice as fucked as the rest of them.

So, they sweat it out together.

Later, when Sebastian falls dramatically onto Teuvo’s couch, he throws his arms out and declares he’s dropping out.

Teuvo scoffs. “You’re not,” he says. “Otherwise you’d have quit your job, too.”

“Fuck you, what if I want to tutor full-time?”

Teuvo throws a pillow at Sebastian’s head and misses.

“You don’t.”

“Why are you right all the time? I hate it. I hate you.”

But he doesn’t, he really doesn’t.

The real question is of what there is beyond that.

Back home, there were the times in Teuvo’s car, when they weren’t sure yet who they were as people. Sebastian would pull Teuvo forward and Teuvo would always, always relent. They’d stopped, sometime between graduation and America, but Teuvo had never forgotten what it felt like to wrap his hands around Sebastian’s ribs, to come undone.

There is a part of Teuvo that knows someone like Sebastian is not forever. That he’s flighty, scared of commitment, that he’ll always give so much, but always take the most in the end.

So, for now, they’re friends.

That’s all.

\-- 

The longing comes and goes with the seasons.

Teuvo’s never seen the ocean, but he wants to, and it’s the wanting that keeps him up at night, that has him sweating out of his skin.

Sebastian’s seen it.

He said it happened when he was little, that he’d peeked at it beneath his blindfold, that he’d been restless for months after, that the unquiet almost consumed him.

Teuvo sees the sea in Sebastian’s eyes, some days, undulating, like a harbinger of some new and wonderful magic. And in the summer, they’re both taken in by the longing. Teuvo kisses Sebastian and they both fall into the idea of it: the unsound, the ocean, the denizens of the deep.

Teuvo is drawn to Sebastian like he’s drawn to the sea.

But the longing, it comes and goes.

\--

“You’re the worst,” Sebastian says, but it falls flat when he throws his head back and lets out a low groan at Teuvo’s hand making its way down his pants.

“Am I?” Teuvo’s smiling, voice low and conspiratorial.

“Absolutely,” Sebastian nods, breathing hard. “The bane of my existence.”

Teuvo sucks dark spots into the skin at Sebastian’s hips. He marvels at how he gets to do this, of all the people in the fucking world, he’s the one who gets to make Sebastian sound the way he does now.

He jerks Sebastian off slow, leaves him trembling and red.

They go back to doing homework after that. Teuvo smacks the back of Sebastian’s head when he asks if they have condoms.

**now**

There’s this wall that exists between the two of them, did when they were back home, becomes more tangible as the seconds tick by.

Teuvo watches Sebastian iron his dress shirt in preparation for work the next morning. Because he lives here, now, in America. Which explains why it’s been years since they’ve seen each other, and why everything about Sebastian feels altered.

They sit in silence as the city moves beneath their feet. Teuvo wishes he knew what to say.

Sebastian had offered to let him stay. He’d known what he was getting himself into- the awkwardness, the tension.

“You’ve seen it now, yeah?” he asks, and his eyes flit up to meet Teuvo’s for a second before he’s looking back down.

“Last year.”

He remembers like it was yesterday, how he’d felt the waves pour over his toes, how the sand had felt, pressed up close to him - how the water had filled his lungs, how it surged into him, and then out.

“Did it hurt?” Sebastian stops pretending like he’s getting anything done, like he ever could with Teuvo standing inches away at his side.

“You still haven’t been?” Teuvo feels like he should have known.

Sebastian shakes his head, a tiny, resolute motion.

Now that Teuvo’s looking, he can see all the usual signs of the sickness- the bags under Sebastian’s eyes, the shake that travels up and down his frame when the wind blows.

“Sebastian, it’s so beautiful,” Teuvo says, because he can’t help himself, because he’s programmed to.

He moves to take Sebastian’s hand in his, but he’s not quick enough- Sebastian is pulling back, retreating into the kitchen. Perhaps he doesn’t want to hear about it, the sea. Teuvo follows.

“Why are you… Can you tell me why you’re here, really?” He’s reaching into the fridge to pull out a six-pack of terrible beer. He offers one to Teuvo, who refuses swiftly.

It’s been a while since Teuvo’s had anything to drink, though. He’s terribly parched.

“Finding myself,” Teuvo lies.

He hesitates to tell Sebastian that he’s not sure how he even got here. That he doesn’t remember the flight, the drive, anything.

Sebastian scoffs into his beer, smile hidden by the can. “Don’t bullshit me, you’ve always been so sure of yourself.”

It’s hardly true, but Sebastian really doesn’t need to know that.

“You, too,” Teuvo says, steps in close to catch Sebastian’s wrist and pull the drink down and away from his face. “You’ve always known.”

Sebastian stiffens at the contact, his eyes going wide. He swallows. “I knew, and then I left, and everything was different.”

Sebastian’s eyes are on Teuvo’s lips. The whole room fills with water, they swim through it all.

“Do you want to taste it?” Teuvo asks, letting Sebastian go.

He inhales shakily. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah.”

Then they’re kissing, and it’s all salt.

Sebastian drinks him in, desperate, panting already, and Teuvo knows the feeling. They want each other for different reasons, Teuvo just for the sake of it, Sebastian because the temptation proves too great.

Sebastian’s hands are already at Teuvo’s hips, pulling him in, slotting their bodies together, and oh, how he missed this- the rashness of it all.

“It’s like this,” Teuvo manages between kisses. “It feels like this.”

“Show me,” Sebastian gasps into Teuvo’s neck.

He supposes he can do that. They don’t make it to the bedroom.

Sebastian backs Teuvo up against the counter, his hard on pressing heavy against Teuvo’s upper thigh. Arousal travels through him like an electric shock, goes from his toes up to his ears and then stays- dark, overwhelming.

“Since when?” Teuvo asks, hands coming down to rid Sebastian of his stifling shirt. “What made you want me again?”

“You can’t just touch me,” Sebastian pouts, Teuvo can see it even under all his tousled hair, “and expect for nothing to happen.”

Once Sebastian’s shirt is off, Teuvo can’t stop himself, had never really wanted to in the first place. It’s been too long, the warmth underneath Teuvo’s fingers beats in time with his own heart. He can feel it, when the goosebumps raise, when Sebastian’s breath hitches as Teuvo’s fingers dust over a nipple.

He’s unbuttoning Sebastian’s jeans with one hand and fumbling when Sebastian swats Teuvo’s hand away.

“You have no idea bad I wanted this,” Sebastian says, and Teuvo thinks he might know, if it’s felt anything like what Teuvo’s gone through.

But Sebastian’s eyes are half glazed over and it’s not about Teuvo as much as it is about the sea, and the tasting, and the unraveling.

Sebastian’s undoing Teuvo’s fly, and then he’s on his knees and he’s open-mouthed panting for it, his lips red from all the biting.

“Can I?” Sebastian asks.

Teuvo nods because he is nothing if not weak.

Sebastian breathes hot over Teuvo, and god, it’s already too much. Teuvo whimpers pathetically when Sebastian pulls him out of his boxers and licks a stripe up the side of his dick. He looks so good like this, down on his knees, blush high across his cheekbones.

Teuvo can’t last long, not when Sebastian’s debauched and desperate for it.

He pulls at Sebastian’s hair when he can feel the tension build to a peak, but Sebastian doesn’t budge, just breathes faster through his nose and swallows.

He’s so out of it, Sebastian leans back in a daze and Teuvo can’t help but follow him over.

They’re on the floor, now, and it can’t be comfortable, but when Teuvo kisses him he doesn’t seem to care at all.

“Please,” he says into Teuvo’s mouth.

And, yeah, this has got to be enough for now. Teuvo kisses Sebastian fiercely, because it hurts and because he likes it. And he hopes.

**then**

_ [this girl so small in the arms of the atlantic, _

_ but somehow, _

_ she fit the entire sun between her teeth] _

Sebastian has a bright red lollipop perched masterfully between his fingers. He looks at once like a child and a man with a dark mysterious past.

Teuvo knows which one of those things he is most like.

“Written your letters yet?” Sebastian asks, eyes never focusing on any part of the room for long. Flighty, he’s flighty, more than he’s ever been.

Which isn’t to say he’s not usually a twitching mess.

“I’ve got better things to do,” Teuvo says.

Which is true. Finals are coming up. Papers are due. Teuvo’s got to keep himself very busy to avoid doing things he will regret.

But Sebastian just _ looks _ at him and it’s hard not to at least think about doing things they’ll _ both _ regret.

Sebastian writes letters, he writes and he writes and he folds some up and puts them in envelopes, and others he tosses in the trash. Teuvo’s not a bad enough person to have dug them back out.

That doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to.

Now, Sebastian’s writing something down on his hand and he’s got that lollipop in his mouth and Teuvo’s mind is not on homework anymore.

“You wanna take a walk?” Sebastian asks, maybe to break the silence, maybe because he’s growing bored.

Teuvo nods, and then they’re in the woods and Sebastian is leading Teuvo toward the lake. He backs himself up against a tree, leads Teuvo to stand in front of him, smiles brightly.

“Do you miss us?” he asks, and Teuvo blinks slowly and tries to figure out whether or not this is a dream.

He takes a step back, but Sebastian pulls him back in. But he knows, now, where Sebastian brings boys to kiss them, he knows he’s not the first and while that’s fine, he just knows it’ll all be over for him if this doesn’t mean anything. 

“Please,” Sebastian says, but it’s quiet, and the sound of it makes Teuvo lightheaded. “Say something.”

He doesn’t, knows he can’t, that if he does, the feelings he’s been trying so hard to stifle will bubble to the surface. He knows that if he opens his mouth, he will begin speaking and it will never stop.

The silence stretches on, and Sebastian’s face sours.

“Just this,” Sebastian says quickly, and he means how they’re inches apart. “Did you miss this?”

There’s the reminder that Sebastian needs to know that Teuvo wants him, but he also needs to know Teuvo doesn’t want _ him _, just the idea of it all.

Teuvo wants him. So, he doesn’t speak, he kisses Sebastian for the first time in two years and falls all the way apart.

\--

The time capsule is buried a few feet left of where someone was said to have heroically died for some cause.

Teuvo doesn’t put anything in it, hadn’t really thought to.

Sebastian puts a single envelope inside, and when he does it his eyes are sparkling.

He doesn’t mention all the hundreds of letters Teuvo’s seen him write. He doesn’t tell Teuvo what the letter says.

Just lets him drown in the mystery.

\-- 

Teuvo’s moving back home and he’s thinking about asking Sebastian to come back with him, maybe, after he’s done with uni. It feels like a lot to ask, like he’s got a ring already but-- they’ve known each other for this long. 

Maybe they can take on the sea together, ease it’s pull for a while. 

He thinks to ask, but he doesn’t, because Sebastian’s got a test coming up, or he’s busy with a paper, or he forgot his water bottle in another room. 

“You keep staring at me,” Sebastian comments while they’re out buying trash bags and chewing gum. 

“You’re just so ugly I can’t help it,” Teuvo responds, and as far as defense mechanisms go, bitchiness is not a bad one. 

“Right, like I’m worse looking than you.”

And so it goes.

\--

If they were exclusive, which they’re not, Teuvo might be pretty hurt when he sees Sebastian’s lips on some guys neck at the bar. 

If they were exclusive, which they’re not, Teuvo might be trying not to dry heave in a disgusting southern bathroom, sticky sweet tea door handles and all.

They’re not exclusive, they’ve never spoken about it. The bathroom floor leaves wet spots on Teuvo’s jeans, leaves bruises on his knees. This isn’t even the first time, it’s just the first time after-- after they’d fixed things, maybe. After Teuvo had carefully hidden his feelings behind all this performative indifference. 

Does he have a right, even, to feel like his abdomen is empty space where blood used to be, like he’s all over the floor, like he’s opening and salting his own wounds?

Sebastian’s totally gone when he comes over, two drinks in his hand. Teuvo doesn’t remember taking one, but now he has a beer and Sebastian’s saying something about the music.

“You going home with him?”

Sebastian cuts his eyes away abruptly, suddenly sheepish. “Maybe. I don’t know, I mean, you’re here, so--”

This is the part that gets a little fuzzy.

“What am I to you even?” Teuvo asks, because he wants to know, he wants to know so bad. Because he’s selfish and because he knows he’s going to say something he’ll regret soon and he’ll never be able to take it back. “Am I your friend? Are we friends?”

Sebastian has the gall to look affronted. “Of course we’re friends, I- we’re friends.”

“And that’s all?”

Sebastian opens his mouth to speak, then closes it, then opens it again. That’s probably all Teuvo needs to know.

“I’m moving back home,” he says, had meant to tell Sebastian some other time, maybe over dinner or something. But now seems appropriate. Now seems as good a time as any to push the knife in and twist it. “Probably next week, now.”

Sebastian’s hands tremble, Teuvo can see them shaking around his beer, along with the whole house.

“What if I asked you to stay? Would you?” 

Teuvo bites his lip. The hurt’s still there but it’s been pleasantly stifled by this, by the hurt he is capable of causing in return. 

“I don’t think you’re really allowed to want anything from me.”

This is the last time Teuvo sees Sebastian for a long while. Thinking back on it, he realizes he is so terribly parched.

**now**

_ [and I wanted to know, _

_ know how much light it takes to be unafraid.] _

When Teuvo wakes up, Sebastian is still there. Maybe only because this is his house and Teuvo is a guest, but it’s still jarring.

Outside, miles away, the ocean is rough and uninviting. It had been so calm when Teuvo went, completely enthralled and ready for its embrace.

He’d never really understood Sebastian’s fear. It was a rite of passage, something you _ had _to do to become an adult, a real adult.

Marty is scared when they go. He is turned so far in upon himself that he’s practically unreachable. Erik is miraculously the sanest of them all.

But the sickness pulls them all to the sea, and it feels right, it feels wonderful.

It’s just that, sometimes, you don’t come back. 

Teuvo’s cousin, 19, never returned.

Sebastian’s mother, 49 and terrified, never came back.

Sebastian’s been sick for a long time. Once Teuvo gets it, the thick malady of Sea-longing, he doesn’t know how Sebastian stays away.

It’s constant, the unsound, the ringing in your ears calling you home. And once you’re there, in the water, lungs, veins filled, it’s like finding yourself.

It’s the beginning and the end of all, Teuvo knows, the moment he steps in, that they all return to the ocean, one day.

When Sebastian wakes up, he’s on Teuvo immediately. He’s so desperate for whatever relief Teuvo can provide. And Teuvo lets him take what he needs.

\--

“I can’t do this anymore,” Teuvo says while Sebastian tries and fails to get his pants off.

Sebastian rolls his eyes. “Yeah, you can.”

Teuvo shakes his head and takes a deep breath. “No, Sebastian, I can’t keep doing this for you.”

“For me?” Sebastian pouts, and he might still think this is playful, or at least he’s hoping it is because he keeps going at Teuvo’s pants like it’s a game.

Teuvo grabs his wrist and Sebastian stills.

“This hasn’t been about me,” he starts. “I know that, and it’s fine, I just can’t keep being your crutch.”

Sebastian sits back on his heels, defensive. “You’re not my crutch.”

This is as close to crying over it as Teuvo’s been in a long time.

“I’ve always been your crutch, haven’t I?” he prods and Sebastian flinches.

“You’re my friend, we’re- we’re friends, friends help each other.”

Teuvo shakes his head. There is so much Sebastian still doesn’t _ get _ about himself. He’ll never understand how in love he makes people, how heartbroken he leaves them. “We’re not friends. I don’t want to be _ friends _ . You get that, right? I’ve been in love with you for as long as I can remember and I’m just this… thing to you. You use me and that’s fine, it’s _ okay, _ but I can’t anymore.”

The silence enters Teuvo’s lungs and swims around, leaves, comes back.

They’re just breathing, but it’s so hard.

“You never told me,” Sebastian says finally.

If only it were as easy as just saying it. “I didn’t want to ruin things.”

He looks down at how pale Sebastian’s hands are, at how red his fingertips have become. He’s still so sick, and Teuvo hates that he has to stop enabling all this.

“I’m sorry.” Sebastian’s moving closer, shaky, speaking fast. “This is my fault, I… should have told you I-”

“Don’t,” Teuvo puts his hand over Sebastian’s mouth before he can say something truly stupid.

He pries Teuvo’s hand away angrily. “What?”

The furrow between his brows grows.

“Don’t say you love me. You don’t. If you did you wouldn’t be doing this to me.”

Sebastian throws his hands up in frustration. “I’m taking what I can get.”

“You’re sick,” Teuvo states.

He’s sick and he’s sad and he’s been alone for so long, but Teuvo’s here and he’s seen the ocean and he tastes like the salt of it.

“And?” Sebastian raises an eyebrow.

“Fuck you,” the vitriol hurts Teuvo’s own ears, “you know what I mean. I can’t be medicine to you.”

“I’ve been sick since I was six, that doesn’t change anything.”

But it _ does _.

“You’re scared,” Teuvo says, and he’s not realizing it as much as he is putting it into place. “And that’s fine, I’m just done having my feelings played with.”

Sebastian says nothing, for a wonderful moment, and it looks like he might cry, like he might be sorry.

And then he’s speaking a million miles an hour, eyes wild. “You didn’t tell me to stay, maybe if you’d told me to stay-”

Sebastian, Teuvo decides, will miss him when his body aches, and then, after, not at all.

\-- 

There’s a stack of letters on the table when Teuvo gets home. He doesn’t touch them for two days, then, when Sebastian doesn’t return, he thinks they might be for him.

Teuvo is reading one when Sebastian comes back around midnight, three days after he disappeared.

He’s dripping wet.

He’s smiling.

  
  


[Letters to Teuvo, in no particular order]

  
  


[NOVEMBER 20XX

Your shoes are fucking ugly]

  
  


[JANUARY 20XX

You are a bastard and I think you should try and kiss me again]

[FEBRUARY 20XX

Why won’t you kiss me again?????]

  
  


[JANUARY 20XX

All these letters have been jokes but I keep writing.

Do you know how stupid you look when you do homework?

So stupid.

You’re so fucking stupid.]

  
  


[OCTOBER 20XX

You hurt. You hurt so bad.

I’d do it, you know. If you asked me to. I’d stay. I’d fling myself into the Pacific, I’d let myself get all eaten up.

You _ hurt. _]

  
  


[NOVEMBER 20XX

I think I might be selfish.

I think I might love you. ]

[DECEMBER 20XX

I don’t think about you a lot, but I did today, while I was out by that lake you almost pushed me into in primary school. I thought about how people have to look at you like they want nothing more than your attention. There’s a breeze that comes up strong through the trees if you stand in just the right spot, by the road just outside of town. I am acutely aware that this is where you kissed me in university, your hands shaky and unsure. I close my eyes and I wait for it.

When we would drive up through the mountains where there were no streetlights, sometimes all I wanted for you to do was look at me, even though I knew you needed to keep your eyes on the road. I don’t think of you often, but when I do, it’s that.]

[DECEMBER 20XX

Fuck, Teuvo.]

**Author's Note:**

> i finished this instead of watching the vgk game because jesussssss. probably a bad time to post this cause -> game but w/e (EDIT: they decided to start playing hockey as soon as i posted this) (EDIT 2: what the fuck . )
> 
> questions? concerns? comments? this fic makes no sense sorry ask away
> 
> come,,, be my friend talk to me about hockey (twt: ciubhockey, tumblr: clubhockey - i dont actually have anything posted there yet im just chillin)


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